Drafting from the early position is an advantage in 2022, but we can short-circuit a great start if we lose focus after the first few picks.
This week, I drafted 27 best-ball teams on DraftKings in an effort to put my draft strategies and tier articles into an actionable format.
In this article, I will walk you through my strategy for tackling picks No. 1 through 4 by walking through a recent draft round by round. Some of the key concepts we will cover:
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- Roster construction goals
- When to be aggressive vs. ADP
- When to wait for value vs. ADP
- Stacks and correlation
DraftKings Best Ball Overview
Starters: 1QB, 2RB, 3WR, 1TE, 1FLX (RB, WR, TE)
Scoring: PPR with 3-point bonuses for 300 yards passing, 100 yards rushing and 100 yards receiving
Teams: 12
Roster spots: 20
The contests have a top-heavy payout structure that requires advancing through multiple rounds to ultimately play in a final week, similar to a DFS contest.
Round 1: Weeks 1-14, top two seeds out of 12 advance
Round 2: Week 15, the top seed out of 12 advances
Round 3: Week 16, the top seed out of 12 advances
Round 4: Week 17, 969-team pool for $3.5M Millionaire ($1M to first) and 135-team pool for $300K Play-action ($30K to first)
TEAM SUMMARY:
| DraftKings $300K Play-action: Pick 1 | |||||
| Position | Player | Team | Pick | ADP | |
| Starting Lineup | QB | Kyler Murray | ARI | 72 | 62 |
| RB | Jonathan Taylor | IND | 1 | 1 | |
| RB | Travis Etienne | JAX | 25 | 34 | |
| WR | Keenan Allen | LAC | 24 | 27 | |
| WR | Marquise Brown | ARI | 48 | 41 | |
| WR | DeAndre Hopkins | ARI | 73 | 82 | |
| TE | George Kittle | SF | 49 | 49 | |
| FLX | Michael Thomas | NO | 97 | 79 | |
| Bench | QB | Justin Fields | CHI | 121 | 129 |
| RB | Cordarrelle Patterson | ATL | 96 | 88 | |
| RB | Darrell Henderson Jr. | LAR | 144 | 142 | |
| RB | Ronald Jones II | KC | 145 | 134 | |
| RB | Tyrion Davis-Price | SF | 169 | 167 | |
| WR | Tim Patrick | DEN | 120 | 132 | |
| WR | Jalen Tolbert | DAL | 168 | 170 | |
| WR | Odell Beckham Jr. | – | 193 | 186 | |
| WR | Wan'Dale Robinson | NYG | 216 | 201 | |
| WR | Zay Jones | JAX | 240 | 224 | |
| TE | Logan Thomas | WAS | 192 | 188 | |
| TE | Brevin Jordan | HOU | 217 | 209 | |
Build: 2QB, 6RB, 9WR, 3TE
Quarterback-receiving stacks: 2 (Murray–Brown, Murray–Hopkins)
Super-Stack 12 Options: 50% (ARI, LAC, SF, LAR, KC, DEN, DAL)
Week 17 Stacks: 5 (ARI-ATL, IND-NYG, JAX-HOU, LAC-LAR, KC-DEN)
ROUND-BY-ROUND ANALYSIS
Round 1 (Pick 1): Jonathan Taylor, Indianapolis Colts
Targets: Taylor (1), Christian McCaffrey (3), Justin Jefferson (4), Cooper Kupp (2)
If McCaffrey is healthy the whole season, he will likely outscore Taylor in PPR formats. However, gaining exposure to Taylor is a priority, and it is tough to do without the No. 1 selection.
Round 2 (Pick 24): Keenan Allen, Los Angeles Chargers
Targets: Saquon Barkley (21), Leonard Fournette (22), Javonte Williams (27), Tyreek Hill (23), Keenan Allen (26), Tee Higgins (29)
While Hill was in consideration, Allen made the most sense, leaving a potential stack with Justin Herbert open in the fourth round (which I don’t have yet). The Chargers play a juiced schedule with seven 50-point games and two more matchups against 10-win teams (Broncos and 49ers).
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